Skip to main content

2024 GSDI Global Symposium presents call to action for marginalized groups around the globe 

by Chris Hilburn-Trenkle and Barbara Wiedemann

(All photos courtesy Jafar Fallahi/Jafar Fallahi Photography)

Global scholars gathered at the Friday Conference Center for a three-day event from Oct. 7–9 focused on improving the lives of vulnerable and marginalized groups around the globe.  

The 2024 GSDI Global Research Symposium was hosted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work’s Global Social Development Innovations (GSDI) Research Center. The event, “Engaging Diverse Perspectives to Improve Inclusive Youth Development,” centered on the themes of health equity, economic security and holistic education, and included efforts to improve outcomes for young people around the world.  

The Symposium kicked off with an opening celebration on Monday, Oct. 7, featuring a catered dinner and dance performances by two student groups — UNC Que Rico and UNC-Chalka. Dean Ramona Denby-Brinson gave the night’s welcoming address.  

Later, attendees heard from keynote speaker Don Operario, chair of the department of behavioral, social, and health education sciences at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. Operario is a behavioral-social scientist expert committed to public health equity whose work spans various countries. Innohub Director Nelson Amo followed Operario with a plenary talk.

“The opening dinner was a significant celebration of the work of global scholars, practitioners, and young people, and it set the tone for the 2024 GSDI Global Research Symposium,” said Associate Dean for Global Engagement and Director, Global Social Development Innovations Center Gina Chowa. “The theme of inclusive youth development was evident in the speeches, the student dance groups, and the diverse range of attendees: UNC leadership, researchers, and practitioners from more than 20 countries, and young people themselves.”

The Tuesday, Oct. 8, and Wednesday, Oct. 9, sessions afforded attendees the opportunity to hear and interact with globally renowned scholars through a host of plenaries, workshops and panel sessions. Below you can find takeaways from many of the events.  


Day 2

The second day of the Symposium kicked off with a plenary delivered by Tom Crea, a professor and assistant dean, global programs at Boston College School of Social Work. Crea is a former clinical social worker whose experience includes working with emotionally disturbed children and as a foster care adoption worker. He’s led local, national and international research projects from the United States to Sierra Leone and Palestine.  

Crea began with a sobering message—youth mental health problems are significantly on the rise worldwide. This trend is evident in both the Global North and Global South, and among high-income and low- and middle-income countries. Youth in low- and middle-income countries, however, are at an even greater risk for mental health problems both due to social determinants such as poverty, disease and violence, and help-seeking deterrents such as greater mental health stigma and lack of education and awareness.  

Tom Crea

Although mental health is the same across countries globally, interventions should take into consideration the context and environment.

“We can’t extrapolate our interventions that are developed in Western contexts and assume they’ll be effective in every context,” said Crea, “Because there are different expectations around behavioral norms and child development.”   

He noted that encouraging intervention approaches have emerged, such as integrating mental health into various social programs and parent- and family-focused programs, but cautioned that there was a research-to-practice gap. 

“Research shows that between finding the intervention is effective, there’s often a 17-to-18-year gap until there’s uptake in a community setting,” he said. 

Implementation science is designed to narrow that research-to-practice gap by providing frameworks for interventionists and researchers. But, Crea noted, there is a proliferation of so many different frameworks that it’s led to “recreating another academic discipline that just talks to itself and is not engaging communities in the process.” 

Crea invited attendees to re-imagine the situation by using the core principles of moral clarity and community leadership and shifting from vertical interventions that are donor-driven to horizontal interventions focused on strengthening systems and partnering with communities.  

One such project focused on vertical interventions and community collaboration was “Ebola Virus Disease Pediatric Mental Health Problem.” 

Crea shared some of the examples of community-based activities that he and his team used for the project, such as working with non-governmental organizations to build capacity. The team trained staff members in fiscal management reporting, qualitative analysis to develop codebooks and quantitative analysis. Community advisory boards also advised the research team prior to the collection of data and were presented preliminary findings. 

The plenary concluded with Crea delivering a potential path forward to help change the paradigm for interacting with communities.  

“We need to stop talking and do a better job of listening,” Crea said. “We need to stop having these top-down approaches and all these frameworks where we go in and tell people what to do.”  

Below you can find information on the plenaries, panel sessions and workshops for Tuesday, Oct. 8. 


Panel Session 1A: HIV and Young People 

Presenters 

Diane Santa Maria, UTHealth Houston

Lisette Irarrazabal, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile 

Allysha Maragh-Bass, FHI 360

From left to right: Diane Santa Maria, Allysha Maragh-Bass, Lisette Irarrazabal

Key Takeaways 

-Santa Maria was part of a team that conducted a study focused on HIV prevention for youth experiencing homelessness. Santa Maria and her team compared the effectiveness of an HIV prevention and care program called “Come As You Are,” with the standard care for homeless youth.  

-Irarrazabal shared a study that focused on HIV prevention and care. Some of the key elements in HIV prevention among youth that were shared included the impact of interdisciplinary work and the power of fostering a climate of respect and openness. Irarrazabal’s study demonstrated the importance of collaborating and interacting with community stakeholders to strengthen HIV prevention and care. 

-Maragh-Bass shared an ongoing project in Durham, N.C. led by the Durham ID (infectious disease) Council centered on equity-based approaches for BIPOC Queer youth. While the findings are still underway, Maragh-Bass shared that the purpose of the project was to bridge, empower and engage with the community capacity for combating the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in Durham. 


Panel Session 1B: Global Financial Inclusion 

Presenters 

Christina Norris, Employment and Social Development Canada 

Davide Azzolini, Fondazione Bruno Kessler 

William Elliott, University of Michigan 

Christina Norris

Key Takeaways

-Norris showed findings indicating the implementation and effectiveness of the Canada education savings grant program, established in the 1970s. While the program has supported affordability for post-secondary education and created a pathway for more adults receiving their degree, challenges remain. Policy changes instituted in spring 2024 aim to increase access for more individuals by creating automatic enrollment and an opt-in program. 

-Azzolini’s study focused on the potential of the matched savings account progression as a financial aid tool to improve college participation among low-income youths in Italy. The utilization of the financial tool led to a substantial impact on university enrollment and persistence, with the largest impact via vocational school. 

-Elliott and a team of two other researchers conducted a study focused on the Kindergarten to College program in San Francisco established in 2011, which provided every child entering kindergarten with a children’s savings account that included $50. The program produced a 6% increase in college enrollment, including 12% among historically underrepresented students. The program also led to an increase in on-time high school graduation. 


Plenary Session: “Our State, Our Work: The Imperative to Reach Those Left Behind By Education and Employment” 

Presenter 

Anita Brown-Graham, University of North Carolina 

Anita Brown-Graham

Key Takeaways 

-In North Carolina, more than 11% of youth aged 16 to 24 are disconnected from school or work. Brown-Graham shared the work of her team, the Carolina Engagement Council, and various other partners across the state to combat that phenomenon. 

-Brown-Graham discussed the impact of their project, such as improved physical health and wellness and mental health outcomes for individuals and economic growth in communities. 

-The work of Carolina Engagement Council and its partners led to more than 7,400 educational and employment services as of April 2024. 

-Brown-Graham shared insights and lessons learned from the project and urged others to help make a difference. 


Lunch Plenary Panel Session 

Presenters 

Diane Santa Maria, UT Health Houston 

Ashley Leak Bryant, University of North Carolina 

(Moderator) Trenette Clark Goings, UNC School of Social Work

From left to right: Trenette Clark Goings, Diane Santa Maria, Ashley Leak Bryant

Key Takeaways 

-Goings asked the panelists to talk about what makes for meaningful engagement; and encouraged Santa Maria and Bryant to share lessons learned during recent research endeavors. Goings shared how her own global perspective was honed while serving on the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Selection and Promotion Board, which strengthened her commitment to encouraging community review and voices at the research dissemination stage in order to broaden the perspective when analyzing and interpreting research results.

-Santa Maria shared pivots and pitfalls of the “Come As You Are” work she had discussed earlier in the day. Challenges ranged from implementing the program through a pandemic and the demolition and move (across town) of a key Houston-area youth shelter. Pivots ranged from recruiting participants via social media rather than at shelters and going to participants to test them on location rather than in hospitals (pandemic pivots); and staying connected or reconnecting with participants via their social media accounts as a more effective means of keeping in touch over time.

-Bryant presented on the UNC School of Nursing’s Office of Strategy and Global Affairs efforts around being culturally responsive to the unmet palliative and oncology nursing capacity workforce needs in Malawi. She talked about learning with and from nurses at Carolina’s UNC Project Malawi, a collaboration with the Malawi Ministry of Health to improve health through research, capacity-building and clinical care. She responded to a follow-up question by sharing her focus on moving beyond traditional means to help people understand the research and make change in their own communities. “My commitment is to dig deeper. To not stop at the traditional dissemination methods. To get community involvement on the dissemination,” she said.


Panel Session 2A: Adolescent Wellness 

Presenters 

Judith Borja, University of San Carlos 

Monica Mutesa, PATH International 

Winfred Luseno, PIRE Chapel Hill 

Mary Cate Komoski, East Carolina University 

Judith Borja

Key Takeaways 

-Borja discussed the educational trajectories among marginalized adolescent boys and girls in the Philippines, including factors such as early sexual initiation and early pregnancies. Borja tracked how Filipino children are faring under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which were expected to aid youth in maximizing their potential. She found that the amount of youth enrolled in school decreased by age 16, although the decrease was more sharply seen among males. Borja concluded by sharing the factors and circumstances that contribute to an adolescent’s school performance, including that urban adolescents and male adolescents were more likely to be off-track in schooling.

-Mutesa shared the work of PATH International in helping to provide safe and sustainable availability for DMPA-SC, a self-injectable contraceptive for women. The organization utilized technical assistance, best practice sharing and exchanging, and coordination and collaboration to help empower young women. The organization helped jumpstart the implementation of self-injection in seven of 10 provinces in Zambia, including among 1,790 health care providers. 

-Luseno shared the work of her team in providing a digital intervention to support pregnant adolescents with HIV living in Kenya. Although HIV and pregnancy rates among Kenyan adolescent females are among the highest worldwide, PIRE has found promise in the work of digital interventions for preventing HIV among youth and improving treatment adherence and communication with parents. The organization’s work led to improvements in pregnancy disclosure and social support and a decrease in depression and anxiety among young women surveyed. The organization’s next steps include increasing the intervention’s utility and partnering with locally-based partners and health facilities. 

-Acknowledging that the understanding of one’s own trauma can help strengthen one’s mental health, Komoski examined how adolescents defined trauma and well-being. Among the individuals surveyed, trauma was defined as variations of an event and an outcome. Komoski found that adolescents can provide an adequate definition of trauma, although some types of trauma are more or less recognizable for adolescents than others.


Workshop: Translation and dissemination 

Presenter 

Barbara Wiedemann, UNC School of Social Work 

Barbara Wiedemann

Key Takeaways 

-Wiedemann shared the effectiveness of storytelling in sharing research results more broadly: turning raw data into narratives that engage the reader on a human level while maintaining the integrity and truthfulness of the information.

-She encouraged scholars to consider “pegging” their communication efforts to related or tangentially related topics in the news. “Avoiding jargon, acronyms and too many numbers is not ‘dumbing down’ the research,” she added. “Talk to your implied reader or listener in their language. Distill your key findings and the potential impacts of your research to suit the medium.” 

-She encouraged opening up the floor to others who might communicate the findings and the impact of the work well, circling back to Operario’s dinner message to seek plentiful opportunities to let your partners tell the story from their perspective.


Panel 3A: AGYW Transitions 

Presenters 

Joy Shammah Ajuang, Footprints of Hope (Kenya) 

Fatima Zahra, Population Council 

Allegra Cockburn, Population Council 

From left to right: Joy Shammah Ajuang, Fatima Zahra, Allegra Cockburn

Key Takeaways 

-Ajuang discussed growing up between Uganda and Kenya as the impetus behind founding Footprints for Hope, a Nambale-based Kenyan organization created to provide a supportive environment to rural Kenyan girls and young women through health education, mentorship and socioeconomic empowerment. She described partnerships her organization has created to help provide scholarships and essential school supplies; business development programs; holistic mentorship; and educational support to young women. She shared that the county of Buisa is 83% under the poverty line.

-Zahara reviewed evidence of a 41-country systematic review she and collaborators at the Population Council worked on regarding transitions from education to adult well-being and empowerment. The review encompassed 471 full text reviews, 213 data extractions and 134 papers eventually pulled for further analysis. She noted that the team is now asking “Do changes in education (interventions, policy, other programs) affect the mediators of the relationship between education and fertility, HIV and child mortality?”

-Cockburn presented an overview of Population Council research regarding identity in South African all-girls high school students, noting that identity may be an understudied resource in the high school-aged population. She described the measured outcomes after randomly placing students in “academic” groups versus other groups identified as “athletic” for example, all with a strong team identification to develop a strong sense of belonging in the participants. The question she posed was, can creating a setting with positive norms and identities — can how we narrate things — have an impact on outcomes. 


Closing Plenary 

Presenter 

Elias Mpofu, University of North Texas 

Elias Mpofu

Key Takeaways

-Mpofu’s talk centered on using rehabilitation as a health strategy to help empower aging. Mpofu stated that an overemphasis by health systems focused on rehabilitative disease management can be unhelpful for aiding people who wish to improve their life situations. He suggested to instead focus on re-orienting rehabilitation.

-Mpofu shared a re-imaged rehabilitation strategy that included person-focused helping skills, protecting dignity and community worth and teaching new skills and knowledge. The importance of community in contributing to empowerment in aging was noted throughout and was tied to public health and health care in general. 

-Mpofu concluded with the importance of finding opportunities to understand what health and well-being mean for various communities.


Day 3

Robert Hakiza, Wednesday’s opening plenary speaker, was forced to leave his home country of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2007 due to ongoing conflict and instability. 

While many refugees migrating to Uganda tend to settle in refugee settlements, Hakiza, along with his mother and siblings, arrived in the capital city of Kampala.   

Hakiza and his family quickly faced challenges. They didn’t know where to sleep or find food, and there weren’t many support systems available. He saw how other young individuals struggled to find a job or attend school. 

He decided to create a space for refugees to gather and discuss issues. The soccer field became a retreat and gathering space for members of the refugee community. 

“That is where everything started,” Hakiza said. 

Soon Hakiza and two other refugees founded Young African Refugees for Integral Development (YARID) in 2007. In the 17 years since it was founded, the organization has grown exponentially, providing community-driven solutions to bring people together and overcome obstacles. Hakiza himself has received numerous honors; he is a TED Fellow, an Aspen New Voices Fellow and a member of the Barack Obama Foundation.  

YARID has emerged as one of the leading refugee-led organizations in Uganda. Through collaboration with employers in the public and private sectors, YARID has found more than 300 job placements for refugees in Kampala, and annually trains 160 job seekers. The organization established a program for women empowerment and livelihood, and in 2024 created a program to provide business skills and entrepreneurial training for youth.  

A focus on research, advocacy and support has led to the organization hosting six campaigns centering on refugee and policy issues each year, and in the last two years alone YARID has funded nine refugee-led organizations in Kampala.  

But even after seeing the impact the organization has made in less than two decades, Hakiza is not satisfied. 

“We are trying to see how we can increase this kind of support in the coming years,” he said. 

From left to right: Robert Hakiza and David Ansong

Below you can find information on the plenaries, panel sessions and workshops for Wednesday, Oct. 9, as well as a list of student-led poster projects. 


Panel Session 3B: Livelihood/Business Development 

Presenters 

Mathias Zimba, Rising Fountains Development Program (Zambia) 

Bradley Opere, FarmMoja (Kenya) 

Nelson Amo, Innohub (Ghana) 

Bradley Opere

Key Takeaways 

-Rising Fountains Development Program currently works with more than 10,000 citizens in Eastern and North Western Zambia, and has an ongoing vision of reaching even more individuals in the years ahead to promote financial inclusion. More than 30.6% of the population in Zambia was financially excluded in 2023, with a larger percentage in both Eastern and North Western Zambia. Zimba discussed RFDP’s ongoing project, in collaboration with GSDI at the School of Social Work, that involves ensuring 85% of the total population reaches financial inclusion by 2028. 

-As the population increases in Africa, FarmMoja is working to ensure that there are jobs and infrastructure available for the growing population. The organization focuses on providing end-to-end profitable value chains for crops considered superfoods, including avocados. Opere explained that Kenya’s geography and climate are favorable for the production of avocados, and the organization has provided a path for increased productivity and incomes for its smallholder farmers by helping to strengthen avocado production and supporting farms.   

-Innohub supports small businesses to help them become sustainable, creating prosperity and jobs. Amo noted the organization’s impact has led to poverty reduction, food security and clean water and sanitation. Innohub has supported more than 2,000 businesses globally through its development support projects in the last nine years. 


Panel Session 4A: Substance Use Prevention, Education, and Research (SUPER) Program  

Presenters 

Carey Evans, INSPIRED Lab 

Tauchiana Williams, INSPIRED Lab 

Brittany Allen-Albright, Durham Nativity School 

Tauchiana Williams

Key Takeaways 

The three presenters, all of whom are UNC School of Social Work graduates, discussed a five-year SAMSHA-funded initiative implementing and testing evidence-based youth substance use prevention and parenting programs to reduce young North Carolinians’ use of alcohol and tobacco (including vaping) products. The work was done under the auspices of the Innovative and Strategic Prevention in Racial and Ethnic Disparities (INSPIRED) Lab. The lab’s director and co-founder, UNC School of Social Work Distinguished Professor Trenette Clark Goings, moderated the Symposium’s Day 2 lunch plenary session.

-Evans outlined how the team worked with programs in rural Granville County and urban Durham County in North Carolina. The project started with a needs assessment followed by the formation of two advisory boards (one youth; one based on school community members and parents), eventually providing professional substance, life skills and parenting training. 

-Williams, a former school social worker now serving as director of the UNC School of Social Work’s Advanced Standing program, reviewed how the team cultivated school partnerships by building trust, aligning with the schools’ needs, adding value to existing school endeavors, and helping with long-term partnerships.

-Allen-Albright from the Durham Nativity School discussed how the training sessions were created and sustained, noting the team’s ability to pivot to ongoing feedback from parents and students about things like setting, timeframe, cultural responsiveness (including Spanish translation) and how to create a supportive space for students and parents. “Our goal was to give middle school students the skills to say, ‘No’ and the decision-making ability and autonomy to say ‘No,’” she said.


Panel Session 4B: Stable Housing and Employment 

Presenters 

Jeffrey Okoro, CFK Africa 

Yu-When Chen, National Taiwan University 

Ke-Hsein Huang, National Taiwan University 

Matthew Smith, University of Michigan 

Yu-When Chen

Key Takeaways 

-CFK Africa is a leading non-government organization in Nairobi, Kenya and a partner of UNC that is fighting poverty in informal settlements in East Africa through youth empowerment and public health efforts. Okoro noted that roughly 60% of Kenyan citizens live in informal settlements, which are characterized by extreme poverty and limited access to education and health care. Since 2021, CFK Africa has used a development approach to help youth in informal settlements thrive.  

-Huang examined the precarity of youth in Taiwan, particularly in Taipei. Teenagers were experiencing problems due to dilemmas in education, available jobs lacking upward mobility and a shortage of welfare once they turned 18. Huang posited policy suggestions including a proactive approach for providing aid to precarious teenagers and innovative training for AI and entrepreneurship. 

-Chen discussed economic insecurity and housing issues for youth leaving care in Taiwan. There are many limitations for these individuals leaving care, such as job market demand, low wages and poor working conditions and few opportunities for long-term employment. Chen concluded that the current housing policy in Taiwan is not properly equipped to help youth and offered solutions. 

-Smith noted the disparities in employment among transition age youth with disabilities as compared to individuals without disabilities, a disparity that grows with aging. Smith and a team attempted to address this disparity through an intervention tool, a job interview training simulator, to help meet the needs of those with disabilities. The team found that individuals using the tool were more likely to obtain competitive jobs. 


Workshop: Developing a global workforce to support evidence use and implementation  

Presenter 

Allison Metz, UNC School of Social Work 

Allison Metz

Key Takeaways 

-Metz presented her team’s efforts to develop a workforce to support equitable change. She included an overview of implementation science, defining the field as the study of the factors that lead to uptake, scale and sustainability of practices, programs and policies with evidence behind them. She summarized that it could be not the what (intervention) but the how (strategies that lead to successful uptake) that is a barrier to success. She noted her interest in developing specific competencies that support the relational work of implementation, which requires trust, psychological safety and co-creation. 

-She noted a need for and interest in training Implementation Support Practitioners who do not deliver services, but support those who do: professionals who support organizations, leaders and staff in their implementation of evidence-informed practices and policies. “They identify, contextualize and improve the use of evidence implementation strategies in a range of settings,” she added, noting that the certificate program developed at UNC School of Social Work has seen interest from people in every continent and maintains a large wait list.

-Metz shared a list of 15 competencies and encouraged workshop participants to discuss the skills they found to be very important in supporting change; and consider how to develop those skills at scale.


Panel Session 5A: Intersectional Stigma and Health 

Presenters 

Kemesha Gabbidon, University of South Florida  

Emilia Ismael-Simental, El Centro Hispano 

Rubi Morales, El Centro Hispano  

Arnaud Niyongabo, Right to Play (Burundi) 

Emilia Ismael-Simental (right)

Key Takeaways 

-Gabiddon was part of a team that conducted a study on intersectional stigma of Black and Latino SGLM (same gender loving men) who had HIV in Central Florida. They found drivers of stigma included religion, layered oppression and social norms. Community needs such as knowledge of resources, culturally competent health care and community support and advocacy were important for combating stigma. 

-Ismael-Simental and Morales shared the work of El Centro Hispano, a local non-profit established in Durham in 1992 that now serves 23 counties across the state. El Centro Hispano focuses on civic and community participation, education, economic development, and health and well-being to strengthen communities and expand the capacity of the Latino community to meet goals, address needs and assist in decision-making processes.  

Niyongabo discussed the work of Right to Play, an organization dedicated to uplifting and protecting children who face adversity. The organization uses play to help improve the well-being of children, socio-economic outcomes and their learning opportunities. In Burundi, the organization’s goals include helping to lower high school drop-out rates, improve the psychological well-being of children who have experienced trauma and strengthen access to early childhood care. Right to Play reached more than 107,000 children in Burundi in 2023, helping them improve their access to education and socio-emotional skills. 


Lunch Plenary Session 

Presenters 

Bradley Opere, FarmMoja (Kenya) 

Jeffrey Okoro, CFK Africa 

Nelson Amo, Innohub 

Mathias Zimba, Rising Fountains Development Program (Zambia) 

(Moderator) Gina Chowa, UNC School of Social Work  

From left to right: Jeffrey Okoro, Mathias Zimba, Nelson Amo, Bradley Opere

Key Takeaways 

-The four organization leaders discussed several topics, including their passion for social work and challenges they’ve faced in their career. 

-Okoro remarked on growing up in the Kibera informal settlement in Kenya, an area that includes hundreds of thousands of people living in extreme poverty and without education. The first opportunity he had to help others gave him a sense of purpose and fulfillment, which has guided him along his current path with CFK Africa.  

-Amo and Zimba highlighted the challenges of finding the right people for their organization. They noted the difficulties that an organization faces to reach its maximum potential when all members are not aligned on the same vision and filled with the same passion. 

-Opere mentioned the importance of scaling up as a company while ensuring that the core values and model are not compromised while staying progressively profitable. He believes that decentralizing agricultural production away from large companies and transferring more production value to a bevy of smaller farms builds more resiliency.  

-Chowa, the School’s associate dean for global engagement and GSDI director, noted the importance of working with the private sector to help strengthen youth development. 


Special Panel Session: Publishing Global Work 

Presenters 

Tom Crea, Boston College 

Don Operario, Emory University 

(Moderator) Robert Hawkins, UNC School of Social Work 

From left to right: Robert Hawkins, Tom Crea, Don Operario

Key Takeaway 

-In a special session moderated by Vice Dean Hawkins, Crea and Operario discussed the challenges they’ve faced during the writing and publishing process, as well as the important connections they’ve made with community partners. The two researchers also engaged with audience members and answered questions related to their work. 


Workshop: Using AI 

Presenter 

Hsun-Ta Hsu, UNC School of Social Work 

Hsun-Ta Hsu

Key Takeaways 

-Hsu reviewed traditional Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is already being applied in both positive and negative ways: for example, making housing allocation more efficient and fair on the one hand; devising an AI recruitment tool (now defunct) that because of a bias in an existing population, reflected that bias in its recruitment results. “Be aware of the dark side,” he noted, while experimenting to find the positive and time-saving applications that might free up your resources.

-He reviewed Generative AI as well, discussing how one might use AI tools to optimize content and editing; analyze and visualize data; assist in developing grants and proposals; and training team members, among other uses. He caught the audience’s attention by demonstrating in real time how one might develop a slide presentation with the help of tools like ChatGPT and Gamma. “Always check your product,” he noted. “You are 100% responsible for the end results,” he said as he added a final slide that read “Developed through the support of ChatGPT and Gamma.”

 


Closing Plenary 

Presenters 

Ashu Handa, University of North Carolina 

William Elliott, University of Michigan 

William Elliott

Key Takeaways 

-Handa presented the work of his team over more than a decade of tracking cash transfer programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Cash transfer programs are designed to support vulnerable groups with regular payments, in this case usually every two months. Of the 54 countries in Africa, 44 had cash transfer programs in place as of 2020, up from 21 in 2010, and more than 80 million people had been reached by cash transfers in the region. These programs represent 41% of social safety net spending, a percentage that is growing. The cash transfer programs are aimed at targeting poverty and vulnerability, such as among orphans, vulnerable children and the elderly. Handa’s team found that the cash transfer programs led to improvements in quality of life in nearly all aspects, from child material well-being to food security and dietary diversity. Recipients were also more likely to then experience upward mobility in employment by using the resource to invest in their own farm production and creating other small businesses. These effects not only helped the individuals, but local communities as a whole by stimulating the economy. Other effects of the programs included increased odds of school enrollment and attendance and a decrease in interpersonal partner violence.  

-Elliott discussed the origins of children’s savings accounts and the evolution of the field to explain how they produce the asset effects. Researchers examined two questions: can the poor save, and how can programs and policy promote savings for the poor? Elliott noted studies stating the positive attitudinal, behavioral and social effects of the accounts, and explained that one of his objectives was to help individuals become producers of wealth themselves. 


Student Poster Presentations 

“Understanding the Mental Health Challenges of Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Burundi: Insights from Lived Experiences” by Joan Wangui Wanyama 

“Mental Health among Sri Lankan young adults post-Civil War: The potential role of social support and financial status as protective factors” by Sumudu Wijesuriya 

From left to right: Sumudu Wijesuriya and Robert Hawkins

“Role of Enacted Stigma in Psychological Distress and Healthcare Satisfaction among transgender individuals: A structural equation modeling” by Dicky Baruah and Associate Professor Rainier Masa 

“Visual impairment and menstruation: Exploring the experiences of menstrual health of women with visual impairment from higher educational institutions in Colombo” by Priskila Arulpragasam (MSW) 

“Financial capability and the well-being of caregivers: Access and skills matter” by Solomon Achulo and Emanual Amoako 

“Psychosocial care centers in Brazil: An example of disparities” by Hana Draher Lopes 

“The role of prison-based money management training in addressing despair among incarcerated individuals” by Emmanuel Amoako 

Emmanuel Amoako